NYC Councilman Leroy Comrie Proposes Bill Banning ‘Happy Meals’

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — San Francisco’s already done it, and now New York may follow suit. New York City Councilman Leroy Comrie thinks the city should consider a ban on “Happy Meals” and similar fast food promotions aimed at kids unless those meals meet certain nutritional standards.

“As you know, and I’m an example, nearly one-third of all children in New York City and throughout the United States are either overweight or obese,” Comrie said.

Comrie planned to introduce his own bill Wednesday that would essentially rewrite what could currently be considered a “Happy Meal.” The bill would require establishments that offer toys with food make sure the meals are 500 calories or less and have low fat and low sodium totals.

Penalties would be steep: between $200 to $2,500 for repeat restaurant offenders who use toys to sell unhealthy meals.

Comrie said fast food restaurants know exactly what they’re doing.

“It comes as no surprise that these ads and meals are also targeted in low income and minority neighborhoods that are already at risk for childhood obesity. These are the same communities that have limited access to supermarkets, limited access to healthy food options,” Comrie said.

In a statement, Mason Smoot, vice president and general manager for McDonald’s in the New York Metro Area said, “Our Happy Meals make it easier for families to choose the right foods in portions just for kids. We provide options for our customers and trust them to make the decisions that are right for their families. Politicians should too.”

Do you side with Councilman Comrie? Should Happy Meals be banned? Let us know below…

The New York city counsel and its mayor care nothing about public health. It’s all about tyranny, control and sucking the last dime out of people. If they were truly interested in public health they would do something about their bed bugs and rat infestation, clean up their streets and subways, and make their parks safe. No, its salt and happy meals.

This is NOT a story that would EVER be considered living in a free country. If you want to be protected, go live somewhere else. Note to Government: Leave us the hell alone. Quit your cushy Government Jobs and go out and get a job in the greatest country that ever existed and start producing something instead of trying to destroy her.

Why is it that so politicians who call themselves “liberals: are such control freaks? In San Francisco it is ok to pee on someone you just met in a local gay bar but not ok for your kid to have a happy meal?

“Liberal” NY was the first state with mandatory seat belt (constraint) laws, draconian non-smoking laws, virtual total surveillance, salt and trans fat restrictions etc… And of course the OUTRAGEOUS dissolution of term limit laws the people voted for by King Bloomberg. There is no other word for him but fascist.

Totalitarianism always begins with the benign goal of doing things for “our own good”. It is FAR past time for massive, flash mobs of civil disobedience.

What political party does he represent? The article doesn’t say. OH – that’s a clue! He must be a Democrat!!! Correct! If he was a Republican the article would have featured that political party association. Worthless,liberal, extremely biased media!

100% correct revelation about the party bias. The left wing media/democrat complex simply cannot help themselves. Objectivity is not possible for them. In any event San Francisco and New York are solid proof that the neo-democrat is the old fascist.

Michelle eats ribs, Obama is always ordering cheeseburgers and fries – even ordering them for foreign dignitaries – so this is just more Nanny State Nin-com-poopery (TM), use this light bulb, no more slat, we want to control your lives through the Affordable Health Care Act which is designed to eventually be single-payer (the Gov) except there’s a teensy problem with something called the U.S. COnstitution, and Federal Judge Vinson has TWICE declared it illegal, and Un-Constitutional, and besides, IF IT”S SO AFFORDABLE, why have there been 1,040 exemtions to it? If the Labor Dept. states that unions make up 7% of the population, why do unions get 40% of the waivers to the ILLEGAL Health Care Act? GE, Verizon, AT&T, and even left wing AARP are all being subsidized by the taxpayer, that’s why they want along with Pelosi, Redi, Stupak, Wasserman, Waxman, and Obama. Elections have consequences.

“…ads and meals are also targeted in low income and minority neighborhoods…”

maybe if momma and daddy stayed together in poor minority neighborhoods, momma could stay home and cook. Fast food thrives in single-mom neighborhoods. One third of the country is obese? I want to insure their health, where do I sign up for socialist health-care?

I lived in NYC from 1995 to 2003. I am originally from Birmingham AL. I enjoyed my time in NYC….places were open late and you could do anthing you wanted. Now you cannot use your cell while driving, they are trying to regulate salt, the smoking laws are over the top, certain foods are banned, and now this. The changes to NYC and the country in recent years are scary. NJ used to be the nanny state now NYC is. Sad

Government should stay out of private business practice. Given unhealthy eating habit is bad, BUT IT IS A CHOICE. Let mankind darwinism evolution process filter out all the fat obese people naturally. This bill is completely illegal and takes away your common basic rights. If you think they’re spanking only mcdonalds, burger king’s, etc, think again. The far reaching hand of the law will somehow extend to your business.

You know, if they made it a law that people or parents (in the case of children) where “taxed” based upon they’re BMI, people everywhere would be a lot less fat! Not saying we should do that, just making the point that it starts with personal responsiblity, not government meddling. Besides, who can afford happy meals these days?!?

One guy said lets get rid of all prepared food. Yeah, lets do that. Go back to NYC as early as the 1920s, 30s, and 40s and see how clean and sanitary our food was then. lets go back to that hell. This guy is a pol is a boob. Yeah no prepared food at all, who cares about all those hard working folks anyway?

Nearly 10,000 people have voted on this topic, with 94.5% against banning the meals. How much do you want to bet that it gets passed anyway, and that Comrie gets re-elected? We are lost as a Nation. We refuse to think for ourselves. We get what we deserve.

If the majority of Americans ate healthy meals, and respected each other and themselves they would not have ugly bodies, bad sex, high crime rates and epidemic obesity. People do not use intelligence.Western people have sadly become conditioned for immediate gratification, not mature insightful decision making. Law are needed to control the herd. Ban junk. Ban crass culture. IMPROVE SOCIETY !

This councilman seems happy to eat EVERY meal. He should have eaten the toys and a few less fries, quarter pounders, ding-dongs, twinkees and ice cream sundaes. Go get therapy (on our tax dollars) for your OBESITY issues, don’t punish responsible eaters for your lack of control………..

Idiot. leave us alone. This is why we need less government not more. This guy has nothing better to do? NYC has all kinds of problems. Get rid of the politicians and let McDonald’s run the city we wouls all be better off.

Children are not obese because they eat a Happy Meal here and there. They government is over-reaching in this kind of stuff. They can’t even control their own family affairs with having affairs and taking inappropriate money and want to control what I feed my child?! Let’s go back to the days when children had 2-3 recesses a day instead of 10 minutes. No wonder kids are obese and have ADHD. No breaks, no exercise and no junk food. I’d go crazy at school these days too!

NYC is full of dumb and pathetic people. You keep letting this happen by electing your ‘hopey changey’ candidates. NEWS FLASH, no one owes you anything. Stop letting your desire for free everything allow these facisct to maintain power. Fools, you reap what you sew.

These ruling morons don’t understand that there are these things called “city limits” and when you over-regulate businesses inside those limits, they move outside those limits.

Funny thing is that if someone in the city wants something that is no longer allowed to be sold inside the city, they will go where it is still offered and buy it there.

Thus the only thing achieved with this bone-headed regulation is that looses all the business taxes on their income, the sales tax revenue made at time of purchase, and New Yorkers lose jobs, and sadly those new unemployed people are typically the lowest income, least skilled workers who can’t just move into a better job at AIG.

And they say they are for the little guys. I pray they are never for me, because when they get done working the same magic they worked on the Black family, all those people will be permanent slaves to the progressive nanny state.

“New York City Councilman Leroy Comrie thinks” well that’s the problem right there.
I’m in favor of a BAN on ANY elected official that “THINKS”. Elected officials should do what their constituencies “THINK” should be done and leave the “THINKING” to those who can think.

Go ahead and ban them. I don’t eat them so it doesn’t affect me. Does this sound familiar to anyone? “Go ahead and ban smoking. I don’t smoke so it doesn’t affect me”. As a non-smoker, I knew when it was “just cigarettes” that the modern day nazis wouldn’t stop there. Did you all? Really?

Right on, after they sin tax everything into oblivion, they will want to tax the air you breathe. Have you ever thought about where all that tax money really goes? It amazes me how gambling casinos are now getting wavers to allow smokers back into the casinos. The marxists constantly over reach and create new problems with their scare tactics. Everything is harmful to your health, so pay more money in taxes and it will resolve those health hazards, they miraculously go away. It is all extortion by the government to feed their never ending give-aways

You have just got to understand that the Politicians in California and New York are simply forward looking. They have to control what we put in our mouths so that they can keep bad nasty stuff out of our bodies. JUST THINK HOW THIS COULD POTENTIALLY BRING DOWN THE COST OF GOVERNMENT HEALTH INSURANCE .

I say keep your insurance….what I eat is none of the Government’s stinking business!!!

While living in the Mormon capital of Salt Lake City, I managed to start smoking at age 11. I used to enjoy three smoking breaks a day during elementary school recess. Those were some of the best cigarettes I have ever smoked (marlboro, Carlton, Winston, didnt’ matter they were all good). Imagine how much better those Happy Meals are going to taste to those kids while munching and hiding from the Gestapo at the same time.
McDonalds will be able to add more filler to their patties without impacting the deliciousness of the whole in the negative.

This government official and many like him – whether elected, appointed, or employed – are mentality ill that have no business in any government position in the U.S.A . . . except, maybe, as prison guards or day care workers.

Can’t do that. First two things that must go in order to enslave a people is the family unit must be dismantled as government must be the only family you have and then religion has to go, because the only higher power you should be allowed to believe in is big brother.

Don’t think that’s true, then explain to me how this is not the exact same strategy that “progressives” have used to re-enslave Black people (and other minority groups for that matter) just to a new government slave master. That’s real racism and the funny thing is that they don’t even hide it at all, but people are just too ignorant to notice.

Read the words of the “legends” of progressivism. Woodrow Wilson is a perfect example of how typical progressives feel towards Blacks, or as he called them repeatedly, “race mongrels.”

Liberals are truly modern day Nazis. Let this slob ban his own children from McDonald’s, but DO NOT tell us how we can feed out kids or ourselves. No stick a Big Mac in your hot apple pie hole and leave us alone!

Maybe this Comrie guy doesn’t want kids to eat at McDonalds because he has no self control and he is afraid that while feeding his fat ass, he might not be able to cntrol himself and eat one of the children.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happy Meals

If NYC really has so much money that they have the people and the funding to start up the Happy Meal Police, then you people in New York are giving them WAY to much of your property to them in taxes.

Considering that the 18-25 age bracket is running at about 30% unemployment, just see where that goes when you keep attacking the primary businesses that employ the remaining 70%. Do you see a common theme in the types of people rioting all over the world? Here’s a hint, they aren’t all octogenarians.

yeh, i have a big comment for the folks that think food stamps should be given out at the dog food quality establishments like “food pantries” . i have worked all my life usually 3 jobs to support my family, as well as my wife working full time. i do have a college degree and graduated with honors from a very prestigious college. was in a severe car accident 3 years ago and could not walk for 5 months, completely out of work and lived on miracle money from family and friends. yes we received a few months of food stamps but this was so far from adequate it was a joke, so we frequented some “food pantries” to “stretch” the abundant supply of government issued “food stamps” . these lovely facilities, controlled by the governments’ outstretched arm, were disgusting dog food quality processed canned goods , dented and outdated, distribution centers for the brain dead and legally blind that can’t decipher between a green been and a twinkie. don’t lecture those that can’t afford, realistically are in need of temporary help, about only getting their assistance from these dog food quality establishments that are good for 50% garbage donations. our government stinks when it comes to helping those truly in need and helps only those that know how to cheat the system…..

Gee, I wonder why there are no grocery stores in these neighborhoods……….

Could it be that decades of liberal policies have now raised entire generations of young people with no respect for private property, no concept of actually having to work for your money, and to pay for your own food. Detroit has been without large format (modern) grocery stores for years – after the large local chain (Farmer Jack) closed all it’s city stores. Seems it’s difficult to do business in an area where shoplifting is rampant, and where good customers are few and far between. Of course, with the racial makeup of Detroit, everyone will want to make this a black/white thing. That’s true only to the extent that large concentrations of African Americans live together in many inner cities, and have also bought into the liberal mindset for years (i.e. – I am unable to make a decent life for myself, all my problems are because of what other people have done to make me a victim, the government “owes” me everything.). It’s not a black/while thing. Look at other “nanny state” countries like Great Britain. The number of people there – nearly all of them white – who have bought into the same “government dependency mindset” is killing that country.

The problem is creeping liberalism / socialism – that will – as expressed in this article – seek to slowly take over all decisions in your life, and enslave you to it’s more “enlightended” system.